


Youth

by screamingatstars



Series: Based off of TODTD’s TOH Animatics [2]
Category: The Owl House (Cartoon)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, F/F, Gen, Hopeful Ending, Sad, Songfic, based off an animatic, so technically
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-24
Updated: 2020-07-24
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:20:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25492255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/screamingatstars/pseuds/screamingatstars
Summary: “No one told me they liedIn the books that I lovedChasing sugar-coated wordsFilled with adjectives and verbsComposing who I’m dreaming of”Luz realizes that she’ll eventually have to leave the Boiling Isles.Based off an animatic of the same name by ThatOneDorkThatDraws
Relationships: Amity Blight/Luz Noceda
Series: Based off of TODTD’s TOH Animatics [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1862833
Comments: 6
Kudos: 86





	Youth

**Author's Note:**

> Apparently this is what I do now, write fics off of ThatOneDorkThatDraws’ stunning Owl House animatics. The animatic this is based off of made me feel a lot of emotions, and I couldn’t not write this!
> 
> I had to do a little bit of interpreting with the lyrics of the song, since they’re kind of hard to understand at a couple points, but I think they’re accurate for the most part. I also took a bit of creative liberty with Luz’ internal thoughts on this one.
> 
> Hope you enjoy, and here’s a link to the original animatic!
> 
> https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtvYrEIcMvE

No one told me they lied

In the books that I loved

Chasing sugar-coated words

Full of adjectives and verbs

Composing who I’m dreaming of

Luz had been living in a fantasy world long before she ever came to the Boiling Isles. 

She imagined herself being just like Azura, one day. How she had longed to become a powerful witch, Luzura, friend to all, defeating evil in the name of good! In a way, for years, she  _ became  _ Luzura: head so far in the clouds that she couldn’t see the ground, reality shifting until it matched what she read. She was happy, there in her fantasy world of magic. It didn’t matter if in the real world, she was only Luz, a human girl with no friends who would never get to fight an evil bigger than a bully. 

When she read about Azura, everything had felt right.

But she knew, now, that it was all wrong.

Magic didn’t come from a scepter or a stone, it came from a sack of bile attached to your heart- if you were born a witch, of course, which Luz wasn’t. Enemies couldn’t become friends through winning a duel; it took work, and apologies, and time. And evil, real evil, was so much bigger than anything she could handle alone. She couldn’t be the good witch who single-handedly destroys a dragon effortlessly with a single spell. 

What Luz came to realize during her time on the Boiling Isles was that the fantasy she had been chasing her entire life didn’t exist. But, there were still other dreams out there worth dreaming of.

She may not have been able to make friends with everyone, but she could still make friends, and learn to make herself better. She may not have been able to be Azura, but she could still do magic. Hers had to come from nature, memorizing and drawing runes onto paper or snow, but she could still cast spells and learn to be her own kind of witch. 

At least, until the summer ended.

It’s just not my time

Someday I’ll be twenty-three

In a coffee shop in Queens

With the woman of my dreams

Smiling and loving me

So moan another ‘if’

And cry another ‘when’

Her mother thought she was away at summer camp, learning to think inside the box and give up all her obsessions with magic. Instead, she was in another world, learning all sorts of life lessons and making a new life for herself. One that couldn’t last.

As much as she loved everything and everyone she knew here, as much as she didn’t want to return to how things had been, she couldn’t abandon her mother. The thought of staying past these three months and getting that frantic text, begging to know where she was, pleading with her to  _ come home, mija, please?  _ She couldn’t stand it, couldn’t do it. When it came down to it, there was no real choice.

Luz would have to leave the Boiling Isles behind, just as she had to leave behind Azura.

Maybe she could come back, one day, she told herself, trying to console her heart that was ripping in half. Maybe, when she was older, she could find Owlbert again and return through Eda’s door. She wouldn’t be running away from her worried mother, then, but instead starting her own adult life. She could finish learning magic, reunite with her friends, with Amity…

Oh, Amity. Even thinking her name made her already-broken heart hurt even more. 

They had met and fallen in love at the wrong time, the complete wrong time, and now they’d be separated for years, unable to see each other. The thought had crossed her mind of trying to arrange regular visits, but deep down, she knew that if the option of going back was available, she wouldn’t be able to stay away for four years. It was a no-win scenario. 

Any happy ending for Luz and Amity would have to wait until after Luz finished her time in the human world.

Pretty-looking boys 

will say the like your eyes, they lie…

I’m waiting to live and I’m waiting to die

It’ll be over and I’ll still be asking why

There was only a day left before Luz was set to return to the human world. 

She found herself walking through the entire Owl House, looking through all the hallways and the closets again, at all the vaguely witchy items that she remembered being so excited about when she first arrived. She picked up a broom, remembering her first day at the Owl House and, later, her first day at Hexside, and tried not to cry as she thought back to what things had been like before. Boys at her school, making fun of her books and mocking her dreams, wondering if Luz was even human. Walking up to her desk, grabbing her book out of her hand and reading out loud, laughing in their little group.

That was the extent of her interactions with her classmates: either they picked on Luz, or she accidentally freaked them out, with little in-between. Lonely and friendless for fourteen years, with nothing but her mother and Azura to keep her company, and now she had to go back and do it all again for another four years before she could come back.

She sat with her back against the wall, knees drawn into her chest, and let the tears fall. No matter what she did, no matter where she went, there would always be someone she was leaving behind, someone waiting to make her miserable. 

She sobbed, out of sight in the corner, wondering if asking ‘why’ would ever get her an answer.

Cause this isn’t life

It’s a pretty pink lie

And when it’s over you won’t catch me asking why

Luz stood in front of the open doorway, staring into the bright light that would take her away from the Boiling Isles, back into the human world. There were tears running down her face, and she made no effort to hide them or wipe them away. 

The best three months of her life were over, and in moments it would be as if none of it ever happened. She wasn’t sure if magic even worked in the human world, and she knew there was no chance of finding any new glyphs. Her new life might as well have been another one of her imagined fantasies, for all it would matter once she was through.

The thought made her want to run away, far away from this portal and back to the world she had grown to love so much. Back to Hexside, back to magic, back to Eda and King and Willow and Gus. Back to Amity.

But she didn’t run. Instead, she turned around one last time, and smiled at each of her new friends, at her new family, memorizing their faces and vowing to never forget them. She had already said her goodbyes, so she didn’t speak, but inside she made a promise. 

A promise that, even though this chapter was over, their story together wasn’t. Luz would return one day, and when she did, it would be to stay.

  
  



End file.
